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FRED CASELY 1914-2008
Senior member of the Society |
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Fred
Casely, who died on January 25 in his 94th year, delighted in his
unofficial role as “senior member” of the Society by right of age.
He took an active interest in affairs of the Society, attending
annual dinners right to the end, with his table banner a familiar
sight down the years.
Born in Edinburgh, he served with the old City of Glasgow Police,
retiring in 1968 as superintendent. A fluent French and German
speaker, he was the youngest and most junior policeman selected in
1944 as part of the future Allied Control Commission, the
organisation planned by Churchill to re-establish civil government
in post-war Germany. He served in for six years in political and
security roles, principally in Hamburg, reaching the rank of major.
His boss for some years was Brigadier Frank Foley, the spy and MI6
agent who led the year-long debriefing of Rudolf Hess after his
flight to Scotland in 1941.
Fred relished heraldry, using his arms (recorded 1987) in daily life
on letterheads, and with a carving in wood above his favourite
chair. He took his coffee from with a mug embellished
by his shield, and enjoyed his |
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evening tipple with a glass engraved the same way. His banner flew
annually at a family gathering in west Aberdeenshire.
A
hatchment – so kindly painted for him by member Mark Dennis – was
produced in some haste a decade ago when Fred fell seriously ill.
But he recovered, and for the last 10 years raised his glass each
evening in toast to it.
His funeral at Reid Memorial Church, Edinburgh, was planned as a
heraldic occasion, with the Order of Service featuring his arms,
with his hatchment hung prominently above the assembled
congregation. The family have been greatly comforted by the
extraordinary number of heraldists and heraldic friends who have
made contact. |
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Clansman who
waited 80 years to succeed to the chiefship
James MacArthur of
Milton, who has died in his 90th year, was an
enthusiastic member of the Heraldry Society of Scotland, and a
regular attender at meetings.
Recognised by Lyon
as chief of Clan Arthur in 2002, James’s appointment confirmed new
life for a clan which had been leaderless since 1770. His victory
followed an 80-year battle to attain the chiefship, ever since his
father made him aware of his destiny as a youngster.
He first learned
of his possible claim in 1922, when his father told him the family
were leaders of the clan, but the issue was not pursued at the time.
The impressionable young James never forgot this, and throughout his
life continued research to attain the recognition he felt the clan
was due.
The title
disappeared 234 years ago with the death of the last chief, Charles
MacArthur of Tirivadich. He died childless with no obvious male
heir, but both Tirivadich and the
21st-century chief shared common ancestry through 15th-century
John MacArthur of Tirivadich and his son Charles.
In 1986,
genealogist Hugh Peskett began examining over a dozen generations of
the chiefly MacArthur family tree, uncovering James, by then a
retired NCB manager living in Edinburgh, as heir-apparent.
Peskett’s research indicated that James was the heir male of John
MacArthur of Drissaig, third son of Charles MacArthur of Tirivadich.
The MacArthur claim was judged to be ready for examination at Lyon
Court when Peskett was able to show that all the more senior lines
had died out, leaving James MacArthur of Milton as lawful heir.
Meanwhile James’s work gained early approval from the
wider clan, and in 1992, senior members of the clan held a derbh-fine
(clan parliament) at Inverary, Argyllshire (Macarthurs being one of
the oldest clans in that county) and elected him clan commander.
James was already “of Milton”, by Dunoon, through his
great-grandfather John.
On 28 August 2002, Lord Lyon Robin Blair approved the
petition of MacArthur of Milton, thus making giving the clan their
first chief for over two centuries. At the time, James said that he
was keen to take on the role for the good of the clan. “The clan is
now like any other in Scotland” he said “and has a leader now and in
the future. Continuity has at last been established, and hopefully
the clan will never again have to wait 230 years for a chief."
His arms had originally been matriculated as Azure
a cross moline Argent between three ancient crowns Or (LR vol
70, folio 110). With the removal of the silver cross, the chief's
coat reverted to the earliest form of arms of the chief of Clan
Arthur, Azure, three ancient crowns Or - coincidentally
identical to the attributed arms of King Arthur.
He maintained for
crest
two branches of bay in orle Proper
with the motto Fide Et Opera (By faith and work) and the clan
slogan Eisd O Eisd (Listen, O listen!).
James MacArthur
was born in Calgary, Alberta, where his Scots-born father Jack was a
cattle rancher. His parents returned to Scotland after the First
World War, with their son being educated at Dollar Academy and
Loretto. Wanting a little more adventure than the life in the
insurance business into which he moved, young James used his
contacts to gain a post with Mackinnon Mackenzie, shipping agents in
Bombay and Calcutta for British India Steam Navigation and P&O. He
remained in India until independence, returning to Scotland in time
for nationalisation of the coal industry and a post with the
newly-formed National Coal Board.
Despite devoting
his life to clan affairs and the pursuit of chiefship, James always
remained an essentially modest man, delighting in the surroundings
of home, Patricia his wife of 55 years, family and friends.
Diagnosed with cancer last year, James refused to let the gravity of
his condition change his way of life. He remained active until very
recent months, getting out, and attending meetings of the Society
until last autumn. He is survived by Patricia, their children John
and Mary, and grandsons Gavin, Calum and Ian. John succeesds his
father in the chiefship.
James Edward
Moir MacArthur of that Ilk and Milton FSAScot was born September 20
1914 at Calgary, Alberta. He died April 1 2004 at Edinburgh, aged
89.
By GORDON
CASELY |
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Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: a Scottish appreciation |
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Lady
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes Lyon could almost be forgiven her
London birthplace, so strongly did she emphasise her Scottishness.
She was a Caithness laird in her own right and an ordinary member of
Birkhall Women's Rural Institute close by her home on Royal Deeside.
Partly raised at Glamis Castle, she chose her family home as the
birthplace of Princess Margaret in 1930.
Her exceptional
longevity meant that she was the longest serving member of the Order
of the Thistle, Scotland's senior order of chivalry, appointed Lady
of the Thistle 65 years ago in 1937. She had her own tartan, the
1941 Duchess of York, blue and green with black lines and bold white
overstripes. Not that she needed any more tartan than she already
used - for there are many on Deeside who remember her from her
Birkhall days swathed in the stuff. |
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She would carry up
to four separate setts, all cheerfully clashing with each other, and
including headscarf, neck scarf, skirt and coat lining. When the
historian Fenton Wyness presented her with a length of his Deeside
District tartan, she was spotted the following season sporting the
material as a new skirt during a visit to one of her favourite
picnic places high in the Aberdeenshire hills.
The pain of early
widowhood was somewhat assuaged when she was persuaded to purchase
the Castle of Mey in Scotland's most northerly mainland county.
Initially, she was not the most willing of travellers to the renamed
Barrogill Castle, for the building needed a caring hand and the
unkempt garden verged on the wild. True to form, she engaged with
the community as well as the place, becoming patron of Caithness
Artists Society and a regular opener of Caithness Agricultural Show.
Paintings from the former soon decorated both Mey and Birkhall,
while at the latter she engaged in keen and knowledgeable discussion
about stock, herself a longtime breeder of pedigree Aberdeen Angus
cattle and serving as president of the Royal Highland and
Agricultural Society in 1963.
Summer in Caithness
took her farthest from protocol and closest to ordinary acts of
kindness. A local fanner driving in his tractor along a tiny road
near Mey on a pouring wet morning recalls a "drookit little figure"
trudging along with her hood up. "Can I give you a lift to the end
of the road?" he shouted down - and up looked the Queen Mother.
This was a repeat
of 1962 on Deeside as 200 soldiers of the Ist Battalion London
Scottish Regiment (TA) marched along the road between Ballater and
Braemar on their way to tackle the Lairig Ghru as part of an
exercise. At Invercauld a small figure in waxed jacket and waders
appeared at the side of the road, and an astonished officer had just
time to bark out "Queen Mother - eyes left" before giving the
salute.
No stranger to
matters military - she was colonel-in-chief of the Black Watch, the
regiment in which her elder brother Fergus was killed during the
First World War - she insisted on standing to take the salute at her
100th birthday review during the march past of what she endearingly
referred to as "my regiments". That event in 2000 was also the
occasion of one of her few public speeches, made more notable for
her little touch of vanity in memorising her words rather than be
seen in spectacles.
Astrologists might
attribute her natural showmanship to her birth sign Leo, for those
born under this star reputedly enjoy being the centre of attention.
The fact that the Queen Mother so frequently figured in the press
photographers' Hundred Best Pictures of the Year was due less to
posing and more to professionalism. Realising early in life that the
best photographs were matters of creation rather than occurrence,
she went out of her way to woo the lenses without ever compromising
her own royal dignity. When she was presented by the Scottish
agricultural press with a crystal vase, one farming journalist
recalled: "You would have thought it was the first piece of crystal
she had ever possessed. Everyone with a camera had the chance of a
good shot as she picked up the vase, and faced to the left, the
right, and straight down the room."
Her 1972 visit to
newspapers in Aberdeen concluded with the presentation to her of an
edition featuring her visit on the front page. True trouper, she
flourished the newspaper and quite deliberately looked at the back
page, so presenting photographers with a picture of both herself and
the front page splashing the news of her visit.
In 1927 Glasgow was
the first of 11 cities and burghs to appoint her a Freeman, though
it took until 1953 for London to follow suit. Indeed the only other
English townships to confer similar honour were King's Lynn and St
Albans. Similarly her first honorary degree was awarded by the
University of St Andrews in 1929, closely followed by Glasgow and
Edinburgh, although it took almost two decades before the first
English university honoured her.
If anyone was Queen
of Hearts, Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was. She had that rare
attribute of always appearing at home in her surroundings. As Queen
and Queen Mother, she acted out her royal role with consummate
professionalism whether on state occasions or fishing in the Dee
wearing waders.
The supreme
exponent of the art of queenliness was short of stature, wide in
outlook and big in heart. She numbered her fans in millions, the
Queen who was regal but never remote, and who was the nation's
favourite granny. She radiated energy and enthusiasm right up to the
last, captivating everyone when she visited HMS Ark Royal on what
was to prove her final public engagement in December.
She exuded a warmth
that made those who met her feel special. In her 100 years, she
never gave a hint of being anything less than a 100 per cent
sincere. She belonged to Glamis, or London, or Canada, Cardiff,
Australia or Barrogill Castle in Caithness - or so she confidently
made out wherever she appeared. If she did not know someone, she was
adept at creating a connection. She was a born networker before the
word was invented.
In life she had
vivacity. In her passing, she has well earned the peace of her
paternal Strathmore motto: "In Thee Lord have I put my Trust."
Tribute from
The Times Thursday 4th April 2002 by Society member, Gordon
Casely
The armorial painting is
by Society member, Mark D. Dennis
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PATRICK BARDEN SBStJ, BVSc, PhD, FRCVS, FSA
Scot.
Heraldic Flagmaker
16 July 1934 - 12 July 2001 |
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Dr Patrick Barden,
who died suddenly four days short of his 67th birthday, was the
leading heraldic flagmaker in the UK. Using a 21st century
development of the mediaeval style of painting banners, he employed
vigorous colour on fine fabric. His flags and hangings adorn many
distinguished venues, and his incredible output ensured that banners
in the distinctive Barden style are flown daily. His infectious
enthusiasm for his subject greatly encouraged many to heraldry.
His innovative
approach to flag design created a new era in Scotland's heraldry.
Alone among flagmakers, he never worked from drawings or
photographs, taking instead as his reference the blazon or heraldic
description of the coat-of-arms. |
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Thus his work proved a
rich cornucopia of colour, cross and creature. While a rampant lion
of his would certainly bear a frightening ferocity, close inspection
might well show a twinkle in an eye. His reintroduction of the
mediaeval style of square banner was his reminder that our
forefathers used this pattern because it flew better, and that the
rectangular pattern currently dominating our streetscapes, is in
fact a style developed for use at sea.
Patrick scorned flags that appeared as
just so much bunting. His burst forth in full and accurate colour
for every occasion - royal banners, national banners, society
banners, personal banners, funeral banners, pipe banners, street
banners and parade banners as well as standards, guidons and
gonfannons, meticulously correct in every heraldic detail. His
clients included clan chiefs, councils, corporations and royalty.
His first major commissions were in 1981 for Dunfermline Abbey and
Holyrood |
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and his work
immediately caught the eye of the discerning, with other assignments
including banners for Bannockburn, Dornoch Cathedral and
Killiecrankie as well as one of the pavilions at the Glasgow Garden
Festival in 1988. His banners provided identification for the
principal subjects at the highly acclaimed 1997 exhibition on
William Wallace at the Smith Art Gallery in Stirling. He himself
considered his best productions the 15 banners hanging from the
restored roof of Stationers' Hall in the City of London, the chiefly
flag being that of the royal arms of Prince Charles as Prince of
Wales.
His client list
covered the UK and included Lord Forte, the Lord Chancellor, the
Moderator of the General Assembly, the late Duke of Argyll, and the
Drambuie Liqueur Company. |
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He was retained by
Burke Nicholson of the Coca-Cola Corporation in Atlanta to create a
series of banners for each member of the wider Nicholson family. The
family, descended from Nicholsons in Skye, used the Scottish system
of heraldic cadency, with the each banner showing the correct
difference of each cadet in exuberant colour.
He also made the
banners for the half-dozen community councils in North East Scotland
for ceremonies where their new coats-of-arms were formally acclaimed
and presented by a herald from the Court of the Lord Lyon. His most
recent work included plans for a series of exhibition banners
showing the Scottish versions of coats-of-arms of various members of
the royal family.
Patrick presented
his own enigma: born and educated in Eastbourne of English parents,
he spoke English in a Scots voice, and was fluent in six languages
including Gaelic. His interest in heraldry had begun at age nine,
and thereafter he collected and drew coats-of-arms wherever he was.
As a student he once stood at an Aberdeen bus stop, completing his
drawing of the Aberdeen coat-of-arms from transfer of the arms then
shown on the sides of corporation buses.
He trained as a vet
in Bristol with fieldwork in Wales and Skye before becoming an
assistant lecturer in animal husbandry in Edinburgh for 14 years,
during which time he obtained a doctorate in copper metabolism, a
fellowship by examination of the Royal College of Veteninary
Surgeons and took postings to Argentina and Chile (He never overcame
his horror of what he saw happening to Chileans under the Allende
regime). He left Edinburgh in 1971 for posts in a succession of
international companies - Bayer, Roussel, Pfizer and Ciba-Geigy -
working in England, Germany, Switzerland and South America on
anticoccidials and anabolic steroids, gladly using the experiences
to widen his language abilities.
During his time
with Ciba-Geigy he shared a laboratory block with a paint scientist,
whose help secured the breakthrough he had searched for in being
able successfully to apply airbrushed waterproof paint to
lightweight fabric. Thus he had invented a sturdy flag which
nevertheless could fly in the merest of zephyrs. At age 54, he gave
up all to return to Scotland as a heraldic flagmaker and designer,
setting up a studio in Alloa. At his home in nearby Rumbling Bridge
he kept a few pedigree Highland cattle, whom he always addressed in
Gaelic.
A one-time chairman
of the Heraldry Society of Scotland, he proved a charismatic leader
and generously provided many banners for Society use. While his
agile mind provided a stream of information to those who asked, he
equally proved willing to make constructive criticism if he felt
that heraldic establishment deserved it.
From his detailed
scholarship flowed a stream of articles, papers, publications and
lectures. His presentations were erudite and entertainingly, for
above all, he believed that heraldry could be fun. His humour was
his hallmark, a genial grin and a laughter that would burst forth.
His was a skill that is not easily replaced, and his memorial lies
not only in the hearts of his friends but in the banners that
decorate Scotland.
Vet, heraldist and
linguist, he was also a musicologist and churchman, being a one-time
elder of St Giles and until his death Precentor at Greyfriars Kirk.
His interest in chivalry led to his being appointed assistant
director of ceremonies to the Order of St John. This was no empty
appointment, for he took the nobility of thought and deed of
chivalry very seriously indeed,
He was predeceased
by his only child when his son Dr Alasdair Barden was killed in a
flying accident in Lewis in 1998. He was sustained in his loss by
his strong Christian faith. He is survived by his sister Edna,
brother George, daughter-in-law Donna and his grandsons Donald and
Tearlach.
Gordon Casely |
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